[Wall Street Journal]We previously posted a an item on how former President Bill Clinton special counsel (now advisor to Hillary) Lannny Davis was ridiculed and shamed into silence by Anderson Cooper and Joel Kline when he—legitimately—tried to discuss his opinion that the Revered Wright affair raised legitimate questions about Barack Obama. (See prior post here.)
Anderson Cooper, the show's host and alleged moderator, interjected that since "we all know what the [Wright] comments were," he found it "amazing" and "funny" that Davis should "feel the need to repeat them over and over again."
Davis protested, "It's appropriate." Time magazine's Joe Klein promptly smacked Davis down with "Lanny, Lanny, you're spreading the -- you're spreading the poison right now," and then suggested that an "honorable person" would "stay away from this stuff."
However, in Lanny Davis finally gets his word in edgewise on the editorial page of today’s Wall Street Journal.
Davis is quick to point out that he is not tarring Barack Obama and his pastor Jeremiah Wright with the same brush by questioning whether Obama himself is a racist.
Rather, Davis points out that Obama has failed to answer certain lingering questions in the matter, and just because the affair has temporarily dropped off the front page in the primary election does not mean questions surrounding Obama’s handling of the Reverend Wright matter are not going to surface in the general election. They are.
Writes Lanny Davis:
"My concerns were retriggered when I read for the first time three excerpts from Rev. Wright's sermons published several weeks ago
in a national news magazine:
- "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards.
America's chickens are coming home to roost."-- Sept. 16, 2001 (the first
Sunday after 9/11)
- "The government . . . wants us to sing God Bless America. No, no, no. God damn America; that's in the bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human."
-- 2003
- "The U S of KKK A."
-- July 22, 2007“As I read and reread these words, I keep thinking: If my rabbi ever uttered such hateful words from the pulpit about America and declared all Palestinians to be terrorists, I have no doubt I would have withdrawn immediately from his congregation.
“In his eloquent Philadelphia speech, Mr. Obama likened Rev. Wright to a beloved, but politically extremist, family member with whom one profoundly disagrees but whose rage one understands.
“But this comparison just doesn't work for me. I don't get a chance to choose my family members. I do get a chance to choose my spiritual or religious leader and my congregation. And I do not have to remain silent or, more importantly, expose my children to the spiritual leader of my congregation who spews hate that offends my conscience.”
We could not agree more. But Davis continues:“If he did not want to withdraw from the church – and I truly try to understand his personal difficulty doing so – then why not at least speak out publicly and say, in the famous phrase of the late Sen. Robert
F. Kennedy Jr.: "No – this is unacceptable."
“Furthermore, after knowing about some of these sermons and having serious problems with some of their messages, why did Mr. Obama still decide to appoint Rev. Wright to his official presidential campaign religious advisory committee?”
Is Davis playing dirty by discussing the Reverend Wright incident as this point. We don’t think so, and neither does Lanny Davis:“Some have suggested that any Clinton supporters who continue to raise this issue are "playing the race card" or taking the "low" road.
“When I said on CNN recently that concerns about the Wright-Obama issue were "appropriate" to continue to be discussed, my friend Joe Klein of Time Magazine said, "Lanny, Lanny, you're spreading the poison right now" and that an "honorable person" would "stay away from this stuff."
“Attacking the motives of those who feel this discomfort about Senator Obama's response or nonresponse to Reverend Wright's comments is not just unfair and wrong. It also misses the important electoral point about winning the general election in November: This issue is not going away. If many loyal, progressive Democrats remain troubled by this issue, then there must be even more unease among key swing voters – soft "Reagan
Democrats," independents and moderate Republicans – who will decide the 2008 election.”
And that, we think, is precisely the point. Until Barack Obama is forced to answer precise and detailed questions about the Reverend Wright matter (what views was Obama familiar with, why was he comfortable maintaining the close friendship for 20 years in the face of such racial and ethnic hatred), it is impossible to fully assess how badly Barack Obama’s chances of winning a general election are.
Because you can better believe that conservative groups are not going to share Lanny Davis’ reluctance to tar Barack Obama and his pastor and friend for 20 years with the same brush.
Be honest. If Barack Obama was any other candidate, he would have been thrown under the campaign bus by now.
We cannot help but think the reason that Barack Obama did not quit his church or why he was so very close to Wright was that Wrights racist, anti-American, anti-Jewish, and even anti-Italian views did not particularly offend the man who would be his party’s nominee for President of the United States.
After all, the candidates wife recently admitted that she was not really proud of America during her adult life until her husband led the nomination process. How offended could Obama be by anti-American views—especially since he never once expressed outrage at Jeremiah Wright’s remarks. Questions remain. Legitimate ones.
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